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Object Details

Title:

The Tomb of Marc Antony and Cleopatra

Artist/Maker:

Unknown

Culture:

French

Place:

Paris, France (Place created)

Date:

about 1413–1415

Medium:

Tempera colors, gold leaf, gold paint, and ink on parchment

Object Number:

Ms. 63, fol. 209

Dimensions:

Leaf: 42 × 29.6 cm (16 9/16 × 11 5/8 in.)

Alternate Titles:

Des cas des nobles hommes et femmes (Group Title)

Object Type:

Folio

Alternate Number:

96.MR.17.209 (Object number)

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Two men stand before the tomb of Marc Antony and Cleopatra, whose suicides ended a Roman civil war. After the death of Julius Caesar in 44 B.C., control of the Roman state was divided between his heirs Octavian and Marc Antony, sparking a Roman civil war. Antony allied himself with the Egyptian queen Cleopatra against Octavian. After their horrendous defeat at Actium in 31 B.C., Cleopatra and Antony fled to Egypt, where they both committed suicide, he with a sword, she with poisonous snakes. According to Boccaccio, Octavian had their tombs placed side by side.

The Boucicaut Master recreated their tombs as a single structure in the European Gothic style, rather than as Egyptian monuments. The effigies display the implements of their deaths, the sword and the snake.